Great, I've been assiduously avoiding finding too much out about this movie so I can go and actually find out what happens at the cinema and you give the outline of the plot in the first sentence. Nice going editors, nice going EVERYONE.

Agile is the perfect platform for establishing micromanagement. Break your tasks down into really small pieces, keep daily tabs on progress, make the team responsible for delivering it. They used to call them 'daily progress meetings' when a project had got on the deathmarch and now they just call them 'standups'.

But are they 20% happier?

Well, there is no XNA any more but this is still good news for Indies and makes it an attractive platform whether there is additional developer support or not. And I'm sure there will be more announcements coming. When you compare the MS developer relationship to any of the other console producers they still have developer goodwill in the bank.

I quit Linux development 10 years ago and I never looked back. You get your life back. Hell perhaps you even *get* a life. Linux can be fun but it can also seriously bad for your health, wealth and fun factor.

I played Elite on the BBC B back in the 80s and I loved it. Out of some misty eyed loyalty I will probably back this Kickstarter to some degree and look forward to a potential release. However I wonder how much of this money will be used as cashflow for Frontier Development Ltd and how much it is about Elite itself. The published accounts for last year don't make pretty reading. This might not of course tell the whole story but it might have some bearing on it - and they are certainly asking for a lot of money.

Sounds like somebody is a shoe-in for a Light Table licence.

I think someone's head is in the clouds at the moment what with the recent buyout of sourceforge, slashdot et al. I'm with a big ol' (12 year) open source project on Sourceforge and it's going through the migration procedure currently to the new Sourceforge look and feel - lots of problems, lots of broken stuff, unhappy admins and developers and slow response to tickets.

There are plenty of alternatives out here now for the open source types to host their code. It might be time to start thinking about exit strategies..

NASA doing a software upgrade is not big news. This is going to be phenomenally safe. Much scarier doing software upgrades on millions of unknown hardware configurations globally than on one totally locked down platform no matter what distance or cost is involved.

Now I'll _have_ on to Google plus..

Arf.

Different firms, different departments, can have wildly different needs. Some areas may need hot coding skills, low latency, high performance, networked and quick turnaround on changes. Some may need database work, configuration of 3rd party packages, integration with those packages and these might be turned around more slowly under strict change conditions. Some roles may be reporting based and hence have deadlines that simply cannot be broken because figures need to go to regulators or central banks. Most areas are steeped in red-tape, bureacracy and don't move as fast as they would like to. There's usually a lot of politics between departments and between teams - both internal and external as you'll be dealing with a whole stack of vendors most of the time. You'll be competing with some of the best coders and/or system admins and DBAs that money can buy and you'll need to keep an eye on what your customer wants whilst also making sure you're getting what you want - mainly that means managing your own career as everyone else is busy managing theirs..

It can be a challenge, it can be devisive, it can be difficult, it can be fun. Depends what kind of a person you are and if you are able to thrive there. I have many friends who simply don't like it, have tried it and have walked away. I've been lucky enough to have worked in this world for a while and enjoy it thoroughly as you get to work with some bright people and can make it pretty much what you want if you're good. But yes, it's not for everyone.